Well the time has come! After milking all I possibly could out of my old, old computer; PC Chips M577 witha K6II 550 @ 600, it is time to build a new one! This time I'd like to come out a little ahead of the curve. I know this is a gun forum but there seem to be a bunck of knowledge here!
I am a gamer and play alot of flight sims and tactical shooters like Rouge Spear and such... I want a sys that will run the heck out of Ghost Recon and FS 2001.
Based on some things I have read I have a general idea about what I want but I need some advice. I have been out of the loop for quite some time regarding the tech stuff.
What is the consensus on processors? I am thinking about an AMD 1800+ with a Gigabyte MB or a P4 in the 1.7 or higher range with an 850 chip MB. I can afford a 2.0 but is there a better/comperable option...? BTW, is RAMBUS all it has cracked up to be? DDR type with the AMD right?
As far as video cards, I know I want to go with a GeForce but WHICH ONE? The info out there is just too much! IS the GF 3 worth the price upgrade from GF2? Also I know the GF3's will be half price in 6 months...
Regarding sound cards I was thinking of keeping it simple with a Sound Blaster Live or Value. Any input there?
Also I am not clear on what the best Hard Drive type would be. I know ATA-100m is good. Is that compatable with AMD MBs as well as P4 MBs?
I know it is a lot to ask but thanks!!

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"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~Abraham Lincoln

Originally Posted By FiveO:
Well the time has come! After milking all I possibly could out of my old, old computer; PC Chips M577 witha K6II 550 @ 600, it is time to build a new one! This time I'd like to come out a little ahead of the curve. I know this is a gun forum but there seem to be a bunck of knowledge here!
I am a gamer and play alot of flight sims and tactical shooters like Rouge Spear and such... I want a sys that will run the heck out of Ghost Recon and FS 2001.
Based on some things I have read I have a general idea about what I want but I need some advice. I have been out of the loop for quite some time regarding the tech stuff.
What is the consensus on processors? I am thinking about an AMD 1800+ with a Gigabyte MB or a P4 in the 1.7 or higher range with an 850 chip MB. I can afford a 2.0 but is there a better/comperable option...? BTW, is RAMBUS all it has cracked up to be? DDR type with the AMD right?
As far as video cards, I know I want to go with a GeForce but WHICH ONE? The info out there is just too much! IS the GF 3 worth the price upgrade from GF2? Also I know the GF3's will be half price in 6 months...
Regarding sound cards I was thinking of keeping it simple with a Sound Blaster Live or Value. Any input there?
Also I am not clear on what the best Hard Drive type would be. I know ATA-100m is good. Is that compatable with AMD MBs as well as P4 MBs?
I know it is a lot to ask but thanks!!

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1) Go with the AMD and DDR RAM. After about 8 years doing this kind of stuff for a living, this is by far the best bang for the buck. I deal with Intel stuff all the time and the above is what I use at home for the same apps. RAMBUS is way too expensive for the dubious gain in performance. Get at least 256MB RAM.
2) Get the GeForce 3 if you can afford it, and get as much on-board DDR Video RAM as possible. Don't skimp here, as this will last QUITE awhile.
3)SB Live! or X-Gamer are fine.
4)HDD- get a 40 GB 7500RPM IDE drive. I use Maxtor, but just about any will do.
5)Get a CD burner, get a DVD ROM player. Run the DVD as Master on your second IDE connector, run the CD burner as the slave.
6) Buy a full-tower case, with 300+ watt power supply. Buy LOTS of fans to put in said case.
7) Buy powered subwoofer speakers, preferably a 5.1 surround setup. Less than $200 these days.
8) buy a 21" monitor. Factory refurbished at computer shows Viewsonic runs around $250-$300 here.
Hope this helps,
Don Out

A small correction: get a 7200 RPM ATA 100 hard drive.
First person shooter games require fast video cards so the GeForce III 4x AGP with 64 Mb of DDR RAM is the way to go. Make sure that the card supports your game and the game supports your card. Nothing like getting the best hardward to find out that the software only supports a lesser version. See the bad news about how slow you card is going to feel in 18 months below.
RAM is cheap - get a minimum of 512 Mb for your gaming. I run Photoshop and AutoCAD 14 with that much and never have to spool to the hard drive.
The big monitors are cheap - 19 to 21" monitors are selling for what 14" ones did a number of years ago.
Get as many CPU cycles as you can afford but remember Moore's Law of computers - in 18 months the CPU's will be twice as fast as your's is now. By the time you machine is 36 months old you'll be hating it - so calculate that you're going to be buying a new machine in between 18 to 36 months.
An interesting alternative is go get a board that supports two CPU's - it use to be that NT was the only common OS that supported multi-processors and of course NT sucks when it comes to driver support for things like gaming video cards and sound cards. XP supports two CPU's out of the box - so here's the plan. Buy a twin CPU motherboard with one AMD 1800+ chip and in 12 months when the price on those boys drops by more than half buy another chip and plunk it in there for a speed boost. I've been looking hard at the ATX SY-Dragon board made by Soyo.
My first computer was a 16 MHz 286 with 1 Mb of RAM and two 20 Mb hard drives - the one think I've learned time and time again is that I'm going to be upgrading your system at 18 months and buying a new one at 36 months. At the 18 month period I'm normally getting new hard drives and the newest video card which normally give me another 18 months of life from the CPU. At the three year mark I get a new system, take the old one and turn it into a file server and take the really old one and donate it to a cause.

Paul, good advice. I don't make enough $$$ to keep on the cutting edge, so the above was my solution for something that will work fine for 2-3 years. If he builds it himself, he can upgrade components as stated by you. Good idea on the dual-processor MB. My AMD is a Thunderbird 900, I run 3D Studio MAX as well as the games. No problems here, other than using a slower drive until I can cough up $$$ for the faster one.

Rambus is all hype. speaking as a systems engineer it is my opinion that the AMD Duron represents the most signifigant bang for the buck. i would avoid DDR ram now too. its great stuff but the average user wont feel its impact. you can get a Duron 1100 on a motherboard for around $130 try www.pricewatch.com for this. also you MUST go to www.tomshardware.com the best hardware site in the world they have an extensive review of the new Duron 1200 that shows it STOMPING a P4 1500 in 4 out of 5 benchmarking tests. not bad for a $65 processor. also i would seriously consider a Radeon over a GeForce3 at this point if youre on a budget. i have both and for the money the Radeon is a good choice. i built 3 machines this week for gamers on a budget. this was their config.
AMD Duron 1000
ECS motherboard w/onboard sound
Radeon 64MB VIVO
256mb RAM
20GB ATA100 HDD
12x burn-proof CD-RW
42x CD-ROM
floppy
12x DVD
all for $595 cant beat that with a BAT

THANKS SO MUCH GUYS! Ya'll really cleared some things up for me!
I think this is what I'm gonna build:
A Wind Tunnel II case from coolerguys.com. Expensive, I know but it would be the last case I ever bought! I like the port panel in the front. Check out the Silver Pro Gamer... Thinkin' about that one, it is just too damn cool! (No pun intended!)
AMD XP 1800+ (may go for the 1900+ as it is just $30 more...)
Gigabyte GA-7DX MB as I have seen it recommended several places. (The dual processor idea is very interesting, though. Will Win 98 SE run the board with only one processor installed? I'm not gonna donate to Bill Gates just now. Also is the performance jump as significant as it would seem it would be? Are there game/app compatibility issues?)
512 MBs PC1200 DDR RAM at $30 each for 526 MB sticks!
A GeForce 3 of some variety... Dunno which yet. There are just too many of them out there. Expensive but I've been behind the curve so long I wanna stand ahead for a while.
A 40 GB (or maybe bigger) 7500RPM ATA-100 drive. The Maxtors are not overly expensive and seem well reviewed. QUESTION: the "IDE interface" for the drive is integral to the MB correct? Or is that something I have to buy?
Regarding sound, I am gonna go with a less expensive Sound Blaster. I have a really nice Altec Lansing 3 piece sat/sub speaker system and can't see going to a 5.1 5 piece setup anytime soon.
I have a Creative 8/4/32 CDRW I'm gonna use for now. It is crappy but does the job OK. I'll buy a fast CD-ROM drive of some sort. Don't need a DVD. Can't see when I'd use it to watch movies.
I have a 19" Mag Innovision monitor that I have been very happy with so no monitor purchase is needed right now.
Have I forgotten anything?
Guys, thanks again! This sys is made of ya'lls suggestions and the sys recommended in the sharkeyextreme site (the ref sys for the XP 1800+ review). I truly do appreciate it! You all gave great input! I knew I could turn to my fellow Ar15'ers for this!
I'll pass on my total $$'s when done.

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"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~Abraham Lincoln

You're on the right track. The IDE controller is built into the motherboard, no need to get one of those separate. I would go with the XP1900+, especially if you can get it for only $30 more than the XP1800+. These babies consistently beat the P4 2.0s in speed tests and are mush less expensive. One note on these high-speed AMD systems: Do not skimp on your cooling. Spend some money on good case and processor fans and you will be much happier. Also, I would opt for the 400W power supply, preferably from a good manufacturer such as Antek(sp?). The AMDs are also a bit picky about their power. There should be some information on approved power supplies on AMD's site.
You cannot go wrong with Asus boards. Let me know how everything works out, I am looking to do an identical upgrade in the near future.

I second everything that 11H1P said, to a 'T'.
My personal preference is Abit motherboards. They got some pretty cool stuff, and their boards are high quality. But Asus and Tyan are good too.
I like to get my memory from [url]www.crucial.com[/url]. In my personal opinion, it's the best memory, period.
I would suggest going with a Western Digital, IBM, or a Quantum hard drive. In my sort-of professional experience, Maxtor and Seagate blow big chunky gooey dripping chunks. Unless they got better in the last 5-6 years, and I haven't heard anything.
Make sure the motherboard's BIOS supports the size of the hard drive you get. I've been out of the loop for a while, but there's some hard drive size limitations regarding BIOS. Just check to be sure.
For some brands of motherboards, you can go to [url]www.motherboards.com[/url]. I'm not saying to buy from them - I'm just saying you can go there. They list more specs than you actually need to know (at least, for the ones they sell, anyway - Abit, Gigabyte, Soyo, Transcend, Iwill, and Epox). I find it a good reference site when looking at new boards. Unfortunately they don't seem to have Asus or Tyan.
And, for the "phony-tough and crazy-brave", if you want to see some damn good deals (but no guarantee you're buying from a reputable source), try [url]www.pricewatch.com[/url]. It's basically a place where different stores can put up their cheapest prices, and they get listed in ascending order, cheapest price first. But be careful. What I like to do is look for the cheapest price that is also from a name I've heard of, or am familiar with.
Soon, I'll have to build a new system to replace this aging celery 400 I built 4 years ago. But it's still fast enough to play Deus Ex, Thief 2, and Unreal Tournament, as well as the original Zork, and Angband, so I'll be fine for a little bit longer.

I like everyone's advice, but I would not be so quick to go for a multi-processor machine. If the application is not written with multi-processing in mind, multiple processors can actually degrade performance. For instance, if two threads need access to the same shared memory object, Windows needs to reset the bus in order to synchronize access to the shared memory. This is a very expensive process in terms of CPU cycles. So, unless you are using software written specifically to deal with multiple processors (such as enterprise database systems), you are wasting your money.

"Okay, but I'm not good at details, or the big picture. I also show up late, and drunk. I've got a good feeling about this."- Homer Simpson